LoveFraud reader buzzibee raises some important issues in a recent comment.
How does a tested and proven psychopath usually respond to being told “You have a mental disorder. You are characteristically a psychopath”?
Are [they] so arrogant to dispute a medical diagnosis that they have a mental disorder? Do they display any desire to learn more about the disorder and at any point admit to it?
In order to be diagnosed as a psychopath, a person needs a score of 30 out of a possible 40 on the Psychotherapy Checklist-Revised test (PCL-R). This is a very time-consuming test which only trained personnel can administer, so by and large only prisoners and research subjects are likely to have it.
Psychopaths don’t see themselves as having a problem and so wouldn’t present themselves for testing anyway. Unless they thought they might benefit from the diagnosis in some way. So that’s point number one: psychopaths are unlikely to receive the diagnosis unless they are incarcerated, and probably not even then.
Point number two is that those who do get the diagnosis respond like psychopaths; in other words they use it as yet another tool to manipulate others. Here’s a quote from a December, 13 ‘Nature’ article on research scanning the brains of psychopaths in order to better understand empathy:
All the subjects seem to find the experiment to be nonsense. “It was stupid, boring,” says inmate Willem Boerema (not his real name), who claims to have taken part only because he likes Meffert [the young female researcher]. Then, contradicting himself, he adds that “if they say the study can help people then it’s good”.
Boerema, smart, articulate and multilingual, has a PCL-R rating of 35 and a big problem with the term ‘psychopath’. He views it as a fashionable label abused by the judicial system to keep people like himself from being released. “The courts look at your PCL-R rating and add two years to your sentence, then another two years, and then another.”
When he entered the prison five years ago, Boerema says, ‘borderline personality’ was the fashionable term, and his designated pigeon-hole. “The psychopathy label is more damaging though it prompts everyone to see you as a potential serial killer, which I could never be.” (Note, in reporting this article it was agreed that inmates’ crimes would be neither asked about nor reported on.) But Boerema also wears the score as a badge of honour: “I think my high psychopath score is a talent, not a sickness I can make good strong decisions, and it’s good to have some distance with people.”
I’m reminded of Freud’s comments on the following “piece of sophistry”:
A. borrowed a copper kettle from B. and after he had returned it was sued by B. because the kettle now had a big hole in it which made it unusable. His defence was: “First, I never borrowed a kettle from B. at all; secondly, the kettle had a hole in it already when I got it from him; and thirdly, I gave him back the kettle undamaged”….We might…say: “A. has put an ‘and’ where only “either-or” is possible.”
‘Boerema’s litany is classic. It’s ‘nonsense’, ‘stupid’, ‘boring’. I’m going along because I like the doctor, I want to help people. It’s ‘fashionable’, ‘damaging’, labeling, used as an excuse to keep him in prison. It’s a badge of honour, a talent. It’s not a sickness… In short, there is no such thing as psychopathy, but to the extent that it’s true, it’s a good thing.
Just two other uses to which the diagnosis might be put are: as a threat, and to elicit pity.
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There’s never anything wrong with the psychopath. This is perhaps the main reason why therapy doesn’t work with them – they have no motivation to change. But that’s a topic for another day!
I don’t know how anyone else feels, but I was asked this question many times. Why didn’t I just leave? I thought for a very long time I didn’t have that option. One reason I stayed with my husband was that I was waiting for the man I met to come back. That man was fun and we could laugh and there was joy in our relationship. After we married, all that diminished. I thought for sure once we had children and completed this picture of family, we would get it all back. To may dismay, it only got worse. Many have told me they thought he just wanted a mother and was actually jealous of his children. I use to constantly ponder this, but now I don’t care. He has to live with himself.
As for this friend who I thought was coming to my rescue, only took what was already broken and broke it even more. It’s almost likened to brain washing. I kind of blame myself more for not being informed, but I couldn’t have known. This man comes from a very respectable family and he is a business man. He’s been out there whereas I was very sheltered. He kept saying he wanted to help me, but he never would address what help he was going to give me. I think he just wanted to corrupt me. I know that sounds so victorian, but he’s very worldly and I’m not.
I’ve wondered, too, with him, why I tried to keep this relationship afloat, when my head knew what he was capable of doing. I started asking questions about him and found out that when he was “pursuing” his third wife, he was engaged to another woman. His third wife told me that she found out after she got out of their marriage, that he was cheating on her while they were going together, engaged, and married. She said she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown till she got out. I stupidly thought my love would conquer all. What utter nonsense. After the fact. I was blinded by all his attention, when all I got from my husband was negative attention. Once this friend’s facade started slipping, and I saw the monster, I was still in denial. I don’t know what gets us in it’s grip, but I know from this day forward, I will never be that needy again, to allow a man to totally encapsulate all of me. I have learned the difference between pursuit and preying.
I’ve learned too, to really watch the eyes. I saw so much hatred in my husband’s eyes, and this friend had such a “look” that could almost be described sinister. It had gotten to the place where he wouldn’t even look at me when we talked. I still shake my head at wasting so much precious time on trying to pump life into a lifeless relationship. I’ve reached the place that if anyone wants something from me, they have to ask, and I have that prerogative to discern the answer that will suit me and not them. And it’s okay. I just wish I would have had this knowledge to begin with, but at least we can spread the word. I had some people tell me to stay away from this man, but no one gave me any idea of what to look for or wait for. I suspected he was a womanizer, but had nothing concrete. My first thought was, what woman in her right mind would let a man like this go? I sure found out. His 3 wives divorced him for the same reason. Indignities, which a court clerk said is mental cruelty. I’ve suspected, too, that he might be deep into porn. He’s as immature as a 16 year old, but he’s going to be 60. He’s since become good friends with two gay guys. Another shudder. What could he possible have in common with not one, but two gay guys? I get sick inside when I think how close I came to aligning myself completely with him. I was spared. Thank God, my instincts and now my attitude. A real relationship won’t require the kind of work and despair I endured.
Why? Just like anything destructive in our lives that we can’t seem to shake – Addiction. Peaks and valleys. When you’re high, you’ve never felt higher, top of the world queen princess. Let me guess, he made you feel like you were the only person in the world? And the lows… soul crushing, heart wrenching, gut clenching lows. Lows that make you want to pound out the backs of your eyes and scream to the gods.
You start dreaming for those highs, start wondering how to get back to those highs. You start finding reasons, irrational reasons of why things are so bad, just to make it through to get back to how great it was. How could it have been so great if this isn’t THE ONE?! No one ever made you feel that way before… All your faults, and all your secrets, everything that made you hate yourself and he didn’t judge, he just brings you in and tells you it’ll be okay and how much he loves you for being you.
But then it swings, and you blame everything but him. That wonderful man, it’s clearly your fault, or the worlds fault, or financial problems stressing him out.. if only you help him, he’ll take you back to that place.
But each time he takes you back to that high, it’s never quite like the first few times… you’re a bit more wounded, a bit more ground down from the lows. The addiction can be the most severe when the behavior is the most severe. That’s what gets people feeling stupid – how could they? Intelligent and strong, be suckered in? How is that possible? Pride becomes your enemy early in the game, but ends up being your savior at the end, but by then it’s usually beat out of you.
When pride is your enemy, you say to yourself “I know this is love… I didn’t make the wrong choice.. I believe in him/her (even)..” That’s pure pride talking. You took all of your love, all the energy you ever put aside for that one, and you dumped it into someone. How could you ever accept that you were wrong? Duped? Conned? It’s much easier to keep bashing your head against it then accept it… but then you find your true pride, your true self worth and self respect, and you realize you can be conned and that it’s okay, it happens, doesn’t make you stupid or weak or vulnerable. You’re human, and they are not.
Congratulations.
Something like that?
SecretMonster
SecretMonster,
You talk as though you experienced all those feelings first hand and maybe that’s why you are considered a sociopath. You have described almost exactly what someone goes through who has been rejected. The highs and lows. And the more you try to get back that spark, all you have are warm ashes and before you know it the fire is out and your eyes are opened wide to this flawed individual who took the love you offered and abused it to the point where you didn’t think you could ever love again. Did you give your love to someone and they did to you what you do to others and you’re going to do to them before they have a chance to reject you again? Your heart took such a beating that you’ll make every other woman since, pay the price.
Man! Same as several other people have said, I’m finding these posts to be incredibly healing, and insightful and fascinating. I simply could not fathom why the man I was involved with behaved as he did. Now I can, and it’s freeing me to move on: I’m not bonded to trying to puzzle out the destruction anymore. I get it. It is what it is. I’m astounded to keep reading how closely my story mirror everyone else’s.
Scary Monster, thanks for these posts. Your clarity is startling, though I also find it slightly chilling. Here’s a question for you, if you don’t mind: how often do you return to the women you’ve discarded?
I’m out of my mess and glad to be, but the highs were so high, I’m not sure what I’d do if the man turned up again. I’m praying he won’t. When I began to figure out how duplicitous he’d been, he got itchy and lied more and while I didn’t have proof, I was fairly certain he was. I got mad and stopped answering his emails and he immediately disappeared. I think he knew it was game over. But arrogant as he is, I’m not sure he won’t reappear. And he’s also, as SM puts it, very good at what he does. My friends would shoot me, but I’m really scared I’d get sucked back in. Part of me also wants him to write so I can not answer him, so I can feel triumphant!
What about the rest of you? Did your sociopaths keep coming back?
Two other things I’d be curious to know from people: Did the men you were involved with take you on splashy trips early on? That seems to be a common theme with these guys I know I got whisked away. Also–how to say this–did the men you’re untangling from have bad hygiene? The one I got mixed with always puzzled me, because he seemed debonair as James Bond, but then smelled at times like a urinal. He seemed to brush his teeth about once a week, if at all: yich. The affect was shoddy and offputting; it didn’t match his smooth demeanor. Any thoughts from anyone on why this might have been? Scary Monster, would you want to speculate? I don’t want to get gross here, but something tells me this was part of the pattern and I’m trying to understand it.
Thanks.
I watched a repeat of an interview with Charles Manson from around 20 years ago. The FBI profiler who interviewed him at that time was commenting on his behavior. She is saying he has the anti-social personality and is also a sociopath. She said in questioning him about his childhood, found out that he had been rejected constantly by his mother and the consequence of that showed up in his later years. Because of being rejected as a child, he couldn’t take rejection and in turn made the ones he murdered pay for that rejection. She went on to say that parents need to be very serious about their parenting, because the abnormal will show up in adulthood.
A lot of people, such as myself and many here, might get involved with a man who may have been rejected by their mothers or a significant other, and someone is going to pay for that rejection. It’s like they can’t separate one from the other and they will do it to someone before it’s done to them. Then the relationship becomes one of unrequited love and rejection, as was done to them. Just my thought from my own experience.
If they treated everyone the same then I’d say they are just a buffoon, but when they single out women,(or men) and set out to get that woman to fall in love only to end up treating her with so much disdain, just isn’t right. If they could only realize that all women won’t do what their mother or their first love will do. Maybe this treatment started with their first love and when she bailed, he was going to keep making every woman pay. Again just my thought. There is something drastically out of sync to be the object of such scorn. Vicious treatment, just because. Maybe some will wear the label given them as an excuse to treat a woman this way. That’s why I’ve always wondered the connection between sex, love, and relationship. The ones I’ve known treat everyone else with courtesy, but not me. And it all started once sex made it’s appearance. Just wondering. As usual. I’ve been told I think too much, but it’s because there was nothing that seemed normal and I was always analyzing the conversations and happenings.
Secret Monster – yes you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. …u said “he just brings you in and tells you it’ll be okay and how much he loves you for being you.
But then it swings, and you blame everything but him. That wonderful man, its clearly your fault, or the worlds fault, or financial problems stressing him out.. if only you help him, he’ll take you back to that place.”
When I would reach my fill and couldnt take the craziness anymore, he would become most patient, accepting, loving of me and “everything will be ok honey”. “Just know how much he cares, he has changed and his dreams for us will get us through.” BUT then when he lies, tells twisted stories, or acts out in a shove you to the ground way for no reason…. or cheats with another woman: it was because he had financial issues, had a health issue going on, etc. Or snuck out to meet “her” for a glass of wine, it was only to discuss money he owed her, nothing more. Lets not forget he had 4 different versions of the story as to how it came about that they ended up in a restaurant together but you ask him today about it and there is only one story and I must have misunderstood!
Secret Monster-then you said each time he takes you back, its not quite the same, you are a bit more wounded. In my case I took him back each time… and relating to Lesley’s questions about him coming back to the wounded over and over. Yes they will. I think they get a great high out of winning each time you go back. My sociopath has played that cat and mouse game with me successfully for 2 years now. I think we’ve been apart more than together, but when apart he works slowly and methodically. Drops me cold at first to make me miss him, then a little text msg or email, then an excuse to see me for some reason, and slowly I break down, much to my surprise I end up back in his life “to try my feelings out again and see if maybe it could be okay”.
I have now found my true pride and my true self-respect and its okay that it took me two years to find it. I have found it and now I am ready and somehow I recognize its different in myself this time. The other times, part of me knew it wasnt done… this time its done. I welcome to be alone for now and will be so much more aware in the future. Its been a tragic learning experience, but a learning experience all the same. Lesley – I wouldnt suggest going back – you might feel you want to – you will be made to feel you want to– But you are only wasting your time. Move on girl, to a healthy happy You! Oh ya, and regarding the splashy trips – we jetted off to a long weekend in Las Vegas – had a great time and he promptly came back and had his ex girlfriend overnight on Tuesday. Meanwhile he was “so happy and content with me, we had the best relationship he’d ever had”. Didnt stop the sleepover – and you know there was no “sleeping”. Lately he keeps begging me to go to Mexico with him. He’ll pay for everything. No thanks.
Lesley dont wish for him to write… they are way too good at getting back in your mind and heart.
Secret Monster–
sorry for the inadvertent name change. I think I was thinking of MY guy.
Lesley
Lesley – that’s pretty funny – I didnt even notice the first time around. Probably because its how we all feel. lol
no insult intended Secret Monster
To findingmyselfagain. In common with your relationship – during my time with my ex, we split up more times than were together. All the time I was ‘picking up’ on his undercurrents and when I reacted with concern (not anger), he would drop me instantly and return all the things I gave him – in a bag on my doorstep. The first few times this happened, I wrote long letters to him explaining why he had misunderstood my thinking (big mistake in hindsight). Then a week or so later, he would ‘forgive’ me, not mentioning anything of it, and we would press the ‘reset’ button and resume. Little did I realise that he had set up the turbulence and then he was conditioning me by punishing me in his withdrawal for me reacting – clever bit of mind control that. Because, like Pavlovs Dogs – if I stop reacting, due to not wanting to be punished and he regulates his prescence with me by withdrawal, then I am in the conditioned frame of mind not to react at all to his goings on – which means he has carte blanche. Except, I couldnt be that conditioned, I have a rebellious stubborn streak which would not allow me to put up with his behaviour – thats probably why he lost faith in me early on and just pretended to go along with the relationship whilst he got other women on the go in the background, whilst getting out of me what he could.
When he started messing me around early on, I asked him if he wanted a friendship and he told me he had phone numbers of 6 women who wanted to be his friend, so that he wanted a serious relationship. Of course later, I realised why he had these numbers, probably the women who had backed out early on and whom he was keeping as possible prey to go back to.
My ex had very plausible excuses and lies for his activities and like a naughty child he had me focusing on him the whole time – so that I couldnt work out what was fact and fiction. sometimes I told myself it was not as bad as I thought, but sometimes the realisation that it might be worse was too much to think about. I also began to think that I didnt know the half of what he was up to, but the inherent danger in that made me jump ship – I just couldnt put myself in that risk, been led into a blindness – so I saw my opportunity spontaneously and jumped. Best thing I ever did.
Apt/Mgr: I would like very much to say “Yes, you’re right. I’m really the victim here, and my behavior is a symptom of the betrayal!”, But that’s just not true. Sorry. My mother was very good to me, especially under the conditions. I don’t have any memory of how my father treated me, so I can’t comment on that. I have no great trauma in my life that I can trace this back to. I simply am a good listener and observer – what I wrote is based purely on observation and parroting.
Lesley: Scary monster – Hah. Monsters are typically scary so I can’t be offended, now can I? As far as returning to past women – Occasionally, it depends on what’s going on (read: how bored I am, and their accessibility.) I used to more often when I was younger but things get complicated and sticky so I try and avoid it. Some of that has to do with being married now – long term or serious relationships offer near impossible complications. Short and intense flings are more manageable and satisfy the need. Plus it lessons collateral damage all around.
Being able to go back to a past girl can be rewarding, but sometimes they try and steal the power back so it’s tricky. Going back to a girl who broke up with me is more satisfying, going back with a girl I broke up with is giving away too much power. Them wanting to get back together is fine. The last day with my last mistress, she had broken up with me and wanted one last night together before I left for good. She was desperate for one final night together, but I ended it with a simple kiss goodbye – It was my way of keeping the power. I gave her the power to break up with me, I wasn’t going to give her any more.
And contrary to what some of you may think, I don’t hate women or harbor any anger at them. Or more honestly, I don’t consciously. I actually hold women in high esteem for the most part – But you ask “Why do what you do! That’s not a sign of respect!” Yes, true, but I’m wired differently than you. I express my respect differently. I joke with my friend that I’m full of love, love for all women (it’s tongue and cheek, obviously).
I don’t know – I’ve been confused lately with the humiliation thing. I’ve convinced myself I’m not hurting anyone too badly, just enough, by playing these games. I’m holding the humiliation, the truth, above their heads and out of their reach… but it doesn’t mean it’s not there. They just don’t see it. Most of them don’t WANT to see it. It’s easy to hide.
I’m having second thoughts about leaving my wife, even though she’d be much better off without me. I can’t put my finger on why I’m questioning it, though. I blame all of you for muddying my head up! 😛
I need a drink.
SecretMonster